The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting(ISBN=9781594202971)pdf/txt下载_在线阅读全文

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　　A history of shoplifting, revealing the roots of our moderndilemma.
　　Rachel Shteir's The Steal is the first serious study ofshoplifting, tracking the fascinating history of this ancientcrime. Dismissed by academia and the mainstream media and largelymisunderstood, shoplifting has become the territory of moralists,mischievous teenagers, tabloid television, and self-help gurus. Butshoplifting incurs remarkable real-life costs for retailers andconsumers. The "crime tax"-the amount every American family losesto shoplifting-related price inflation-is more than $400 a year.Shoplifting cost American retailers $11.7 billion in 2009. Thetheft of one $5.00 item from Whole Foods can require sales ofhundreds of dollars to break even.

A history of shoplifting, revealing the roots of our modern
dilemma.
　　Rachel Shteir's The Steal is the first serious study of
shoplifting, tracking the fascinating history of this ancient
crime. Dismissed by academia and the mainstream media and largely
misunderstood, shoplifting has become the territory of moralists,
mischievous teenagers, tabloid television, and self-help gurus. But
shoplifting incurs remarkable real-life costs for retailers and
consumers. The "crime tax"-the amount every American family loses
to shoplifting-related price inflation-is more than $400 a year.
Shoplifting cost American retailers $11.7 billion in 2009. The
theft of one $5.00 item from Whole Foods can require sales of
hundreds of dollars to break even.
　　The Steal begins when shoplifting entered the modern record as
urbanization and consumerism made London into Europe's busiest
mercantile capital. Crossing the channel to nineteenth-century
Paris, Shteir tracks the rise of the department store and the
pathologizing of shoplifting as kleptomania. In 1960s America,
shoplifting becomes a symbol of resistance when the publication of
Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book popularizes shoplifting as an
antiestablishment act. Some contemporary analysts see our current
epidemic as a response to a culture of hyper-consumerism; others
question whether its upticks can be tied to economic downturns at
all. Few provide convincing theories about why it goes up or
down.
　　Just as experts can't agree on why people shoplift, they can't
agree on how to stop it. Shoplifting has been punished by death,
discouraged by shame tactics, and protected against by high-tech
surveillance. Shoplifters have been treated by psychoanalysis,
medicated with pharmaceuticals, and enforced by law to attend
rehabilitation groups. While a few individuals have abandoned their
sticky-fingered habits, shoplifting shows no signs of slowing.
　　In The Steal, Shteir guides us through a remarkable tour of
all things shoplifting-we visit the Woodbury Commons Outlet Mall,
where boosters run rampant, watch the surveillance footage from
Winona Ryder's famed shopping trip, and learn the history of
antitheft technology. A groundbreaking study, The Steal shows us
that shoplifting in its many guises-crime, disease, protest-is best
understood as a reflection of our society, ourselves.

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The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting(ISBN=9781594202971)

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